What would you say to a crowd of teenagers if you were given five minutes to explain what Christianity is all about?  If you were one of nine panelists representing different world religions, how would you make the Christian story stand out in its beauty and truth?

This past Wednesday I had a rare opportunity to address two separate sessions of 50 kids each about the Christian faith at Manchester High School.  I had been invited to participate in a panel representing the living religions of the world, and was given five minutes to explain my faith.  After all the presentations, we had the opportunity to respond to any questions posed by the students or teachers to the members of the panel.  The teacher had done an excellent job of bringing together a diverse group; besides me (representing Protestant Christianity), there was someone representing Catholicism, Mormonism, Baha’i, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and Rastafarianism.

As I prepared to speak, there were a few questions I had to consider:

   • What is the Christian story and how do I sum it up in 5 minutes?
   • How do I explain the Christian concept of God (especially the Trinity part) in a way that ninth graders would understand?
   • What place does my personal story play in illustrating the truth and beauty of Christianity?
   • How do I accurately portray the historical impact, both positive and negative, that Christianity has had on the world?

I opened my five minutes by explaining that I was representing Protestant Christianity.  I said that if there is one thing that Christians have been historically good at, it is dividing over all sorts of issues, to the point where there are hundreds of different denominations under the umbrella of “Protestant Christianity.”  I explained that my church calls itself “non-denominational”, which means that we don’t play that game.  We basically would call ourselves “Christians,” not choosing to identify ourselves as “Lutheran” or “Baptist” or “Methodist.” 

I decided to present Christianity as a love story, the greatest love story ever.  I explained that God is by nature a community of three, known as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that this is a community of perfect love, joy, and peace.  I explained that we were created to experience that love, joy, and peace, invited to be a part of that community, where God would be our God and give us all the love, joy, and peace we would ever need.  Unfortunately, people have always chosen to reject God and do their own thing, bringing hatred, pain, and suffering into the world.  I said that after humanity’s initial rejection of God, God tried to use a man named Abraham and his family to bring people back to Him and bring His love and joy and peace to the world, but they failed to do it.  So finally God the Son came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ in order to show us just how much God loves us and to save us from the disaster we were causing by rejecting him.  Jesus was not like the religious people expected; even though he was a perfect man, he chose to spend time with those who were rejected in his day, like the prostitutes, tax collectors, and lepers, and saved his harshest words for religious hypocrites who were more concerned with appearing religious then loving others.  Jesus went through everything we might have to go through on earth, including rejection by his friends, intense suffering, and finally death on a cross.  But the Bible says that He rose again from the dead, making it possible for people to enter back into the relationship with God that was originally intended.  By dying for us, he showed just how deeply God loves us.

Of course, Jesus left the future of the faith in the hands of people like you and me, who became known as the church, with the mission of bringing God’s love, joy, and peace to the world.  Over time, the church has done some amazing things, like caring for the poor, the sick, and the oppressed, but has also done some terrible things, like the Crusades and displaying some of the same hypocritical judgmental behavior that the religious people of Jesus’ time did.  I also explained that this same story has been true in my life, that God has been the initiator, the lover, in my life.  I said that when I was their age, I would never have expected to be a pastor, but after high school, God revealed Himself to me in an amazing way, and ever since then my greatest desire is to know God more and enjoy His love and joy and peace and to help others experience it as well.

I felt that presenting the Christian story as a love story was an accurate way of bringing out the truth and beauty of our God.  There is a danger in reducing Christianity to principles, steps, or other mechanistic approaches that de-personalize the faith and how central love and relationship are to following God.  The next two Sundays, I will speaking on marriage and how the Biblical view of marriage is that it is meant to be a window through which people should see God and His love for us.  I think you’ll be surprised just how often the Bible uses wedding imagery to illustrate God’s love for us.  I think that is a clear indication that God intends for us to understand the depth of love and commitment that is involved in knowing Him.

The question and answer time was great, although I wish there could have been a longer time with more interaction between the panelists.  The prevailing mood, of course, was tolerance, that everyone should be allowed to practice whatever they choose, and that no religion is better than any other.  If there had been more time, it would have been interesting to say something like this: 

“Certainly there are many things that these different faiths have in common, but there are also irreconcilable differences.  For example, one faith believes in reincarnation, while another believes that after death some go to heaven and some to hell.  Some believe in one God, other is one God made up three persons, others in a divine energy that can be interpreted as many different gods, and some in no god at all.  Logically, we can’t all be right.  Either we’re all wrong, and have all just made up religions in order to help us cope with the uncertainties of life and death, or one of us is right and the rest are wrong.  How do we reconcile that?”  

I believe in tolerance to the extent that people should be allowed to practice other religions freely.  I also believe that there is truth and beauty in every religion, that I can learn a lot from other religions, and that being a Christian doesn’t mean I’m a “better person” than someone who is a Hindu or Muslim (or atheist for that matter).  But I also think it’s intellectually naïve to live as if all beliefs are equally valid when they say irreconcilably different things.  Either a single God exists or He doesn’t; either we are reincarnated or we’re not.  You can’t have it both ways.

The best question I was asked brought this to light.  A young man asked the panel whether any of us wished that the others practiced our religion instead of their own.  After a couple of people shared their tolerant beliefs that all religions are equally valid, I spoke up and said that as a Christian I try to follow Jesus, and although He was an amazing man and teacher, he also said some pretty exclusive things.  For example, one of the last things he told his disciples was to go into the world and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything he had commanded.  Part of what it means to follow Jesus, therefore, is to help people follow Him.  As much as I believe that people should be allowed to practice whatever they want, in the end if I’m going to answer his questions honestly, then yes, as a follower of Jesus I want everyone to follow Him.  As I reflect on the whole experience, that was probably the only “intolerant” thing said all morning.

I thought this experience would be a good catalyst for a discussion of Jesus among other gods and how to reconcile the exclusive claims of Jesus with the age of tolerance in which we live.  To help me deal with this topic, it would help to know what questions you have regarding religions, pluralism, tolerance, truth, and exclusivity.  If you have any questions, thoughts or comments to add, please post your comments so that we might accurately discuss Jesus in our tolerant culture.

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